Driving Europe's first 210-degree Market Hall dome theater

November 26, 2021

Fulldome & Planetariums

Plymouth, United Kingdom

A group of people looking at a fulldome projection inside the Devonport Market Hall's 210-degree dome theater driven by Screenberry

Photo credit: Real ideas/Market Hall

UK-based technical innovators and immersive specialists GaiaNova chose Screenberry to drive dome projection at Europe’s first of its kind 210-degree dome theater, which paves the way for the future of the headset free immersion.

The dome is the key attraction of the Market Hall, a world-class space for digital innovation and a learning hub in Plymouth, UK. It was built inside the renovated Devonport’s historic fruit and vegetable market hall and officially opened in July, 2021. This unique 15m dome extends 210 degrees over the top. Unlike in standard 180-degree planetarium, projection reaches all the way down to the flat floor.

market_hall_plymouth_immersive_dome_screenberry_media_server_48 (1).jpg

Photo credit: Real ideas/Market Hall

To completely cover all 610 sq. meters of the hemispherical screen, Gaianova used a single Screenberry media server to drive two Panasonic RQ32K 3 Chip DLP 4K projectors with custom-made, ultra wide-angle lenses.

Screenberry utilizes a mirrorless Sony A6000 camera equipped with a fisheye lens to ensure automatic projection calibration, which includes soft edge blending, warping, black level compensation, brightness uniformity, and gamma matching. To ensure smooth playback and real time immersive app integration, the Screenberry server relies on powerful hardware including an AMD Threadripper CPU and nVidia RTXA6000 GPU.

Screenberry is also orchestrating a 19.1 channel spatial sound system based on L’Acoustics LA4X amplifiers, X12 speakers, and a SB18 subuffer. Placed behind an audio permeable screen, the speakers are arranged in a ring of 14, a ring 4 and a zenith speaker allowing for a truly 3D audio experience.

Devonport Market Hall 210-degree dome theater 19.1 channel spatial sound system Real ideas/Market Hall

We chose Screenberry because of the outstanding auto-calibration system, its ability to handle higher frame rate video content, multi-channel audio and easy integration with other software and hardware. We also love its ability to translate VR content in real time into the dome space. In addition to the advanced functionality of the desktop control application, the web-based control panel provides essential controls to be placed in the hands of hosts who can run the dome from a simple user interface.
Ben Stern, Co-Founder of GaiaNova

The Market Hall’s mission is to democratize access to a high-quality, immersive art space for everyone from local residents of Devonport to the international creative community. Besides screening 360 shows for the public, the Market Hall dome is also open to future VR makers. It is partnering with local universities to offer educational, immersive experiences and workshops for all ages and abilities.

The immersive dome has successfully served as a venue for the Fulldome UK 2021 festival, one of the world's largest events aimed at promoting the fulldome medium. Screenberry helped deliver multiple live shows and screenings of top fulldome productions from around the globe.

“During the three days of the festival, we used the system quite intensively, screening over 50 films,” says Gaianova co-founder and Technical Director Philip Mayer. “We also had several live performances that used video capture Unreal and TouchDesigner, plus some films featuring ambisonic soundtracks that were decoded live to the 19.1 sound system. And the Screenberry server was absolutely solid throughout the festival.”